C. K. Gunsalus

C. K. Gunsalus is the Director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Sciences Laboratory. Gunsalus was the PI for the centerpiece project of NCPRE, Ethics CORE, a national online ethics resource center initiated with $1.5M from the National Science Foundation, and is now the PI for its $2.7M project on developing leaders for the research university of the future with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

She has been on the faculty of the colleges of Business, Law, and Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as Special Counsel in the Office of University Counsel. In the College of Business, she taught Leadership and Ethics in the MBA program and was the director of the required Professional Responsibility course for all undergraduates in the college. In Law, she taught Negotiation and Client Counseling; she was a member of the faculty of the Medical Humanities and Social Science program in the College of Medicine, where she taught communication, conflict resolution and ethics. In 2013, she was one of 15 finalists for the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Best Business Professor of the Year Award.

For many years as an Associate Provost, Gunsalus was responsible for a range of academic policy and administrative duties, including department head training/support and academic policy interpretations and revision. During that time, she was known as the “department of yucky problems,” with duties encompassing oversight of the discrimination and harassment grievance procedure, problem personnel cases and membership on the workplace violence team. Before that, her experience at the University included technology transfer, management of conflicts of interest, human subject protection, and long-term service as the campus Research Standards Officer with responsibility for responding to allegations of professional misconduct by faculty and students.

Ms. Gunsalus graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Illinois College of Law and has an AB with Distinction in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois.

Elected a Fellow of the AAAS in in recognition of “sustained contributions to the national debate over improving the practical handling of ethical, legal, professional and administrative issues as they affect scientific research” (2004)

Member, United States Commission on Research Integrity (1994 - 1995)

Member, Committee on Research Integrity of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) (1991 - 1999)

President and Member, Urbana District 116 Board of Education (1991 - 2003; President 1994 - 2003)